Pause for Thought - BBC Radio 2 on Christmas Day 2006
A very Merry Christmas to everyone!
If you think Christmas can be a bit overwhelming spare a thought for the shepherds who were quietly looking after their sheep just outside Bethlehem when an angel came along and scared them half to death with the incredible message about Jesus being born in a manger.
And if that wasn’t enough a whole choir of angels lit up the night sky with an almighty grand finale. “Glory to God in the heavens and peace on earth to those on whom God’s favour rests!”
It must have been a total culture shock. Because you don’t run into an angel ensemble every other night do you? But by all accounts it was a real toe-tapping sing-along. The shepherds got into it so much that they ended up with their own version of the angel-sing-along.
The whole scene makes me think of the man who went to church for the first time and came away describing it as a two hour karaoke! Which is a lot better than saying church was about a boring lecture or even a brilliant choral presentation. For as everybody knows you don’t have sing like Madonna to get caught up in a good holiday karaoke.
But it wasn’t just the tune: it must have been the message which pulled them in and sent them chasing off to Bethlehem to check out the story for themselves.
And what a message! Glory to God in the heavens – but that’s just the beginning. For what’s the use of a Christmas God who is incarcerated in heaven?
“Peace on earth to all those on whom his favour rests.” And that included shepherds at the tail end of the economic food chain. Worse than that! Shepherds at the lower end of the food chain on the night shift. Even worse: shepherds on the night shift with a paranoid megalomaniac king called Herod, a Roman occupation and a poll tax to contend with.
Peace on earth?
Peace on earth. For the God of heaven comes down to show kindness to shepherds as well as wise men.
So the message is this: you don’t have to own a lot to be worth a lot. And it certainly isn’t what you buy: its all about what you buy into.
Whatever you call Christmas you’re totally out of tune if you don’t get the lyrics.
Joel Edwards
General Director of the Evangelical Alliance UK
